Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

 THE WRAP-UP:

These are the handful of things you NEED to know from this panel, without reading the whole long writeup.

- eigoMANGA is developing apps for social networking sites for sharing comics.

- There's a Kakurenbo project in the works, and Joshua Long is working on some original stuff with Kazuo Koike.

- VIZ says they're working on putting together a flick based on a publisher's biggest property-- possibly Shogakukan or Shueisha's, but I think I remember them saying they may reach outside for VIZ Pictures, so we'll see.

- Cowboy Bebop producer Joshua Long says they've acquired the rights to another film, a "very very huge" shoujo title.

- Just because a franchise is huge doesn't mean that it'll make a good movie, and Hollywood studios are noticing this with anime and manga.

- VIZ Pictures' Jason Hoffs suggested some of DBE's weak points: Goku's "Marvel-style character arc," getting a consistent producer from the get-go, etc.

THE WRITE-UP:

Brrr, this theater is cooooold! And I didn't bring a jacket.
  
eigoMANGA publisher Austin Osueke is the first speaker for this panel, which is focusing on Hollywood's recent move into making flicks based on manga and anime. eigoMANGA (not to be confused with AnimEigo) primarily publishes OEL manga.

To intro, Osueke quotes VIZ Media' sales VP Gonzalo Ferreyra talking about creating new consumers for manga, and "manga evangelism." He talks about how we're definitely in a recession, and about Dimond Distributor's new benchmark requiring a certain amount of expected sales in order for Diamond to even distribute the titles, which has been affecting all the manga companies, from eigo to VIZ. Sam Goody and Virgin also closed, so the distribution channels have been hit hard.

I did NOT know that Fruits Basket actually beat Watchmen in sales one month? Wow.

Back on distro, Osueke talks about smaller distributors that have been popping up, as well as Internet-based distribution, social networking, viral campaigns, etc. But, he says, none have a real way to convey comic ideas out. So he'd like to challenge social networking developers out there to create apps for specifically comic-creation stuff. Osueke says this is something that his company is working on. He's hoping to be able to show something at Comic-Con later this month. He also talks comics on mobile devices, which are so popular in Japan but less so in the US.

However, he feels that mobile and online comics aren't really a revenue-generator, but more of a viral marketing tactic to get the books back in stores. He quotes now Del Rey Associate Publisher (and my favorite hat-wearer) Dallas Middaugh talking about how reading manga on a screen is a different experience than reading the bookk. For some it's good enough, but for most, it's not-- unlike anime. (My words now: anime, after all, is more or less the same on the screen regardless of whether it's from a DVD or a file on your computer; manga on a screen is very different from manga on a page, experientially.)

And to tie it into movies, Osueke says that people need to think of their titles as IPs, properties that can be transferred to different media, including movies. He's going to hang up the mic shortly and we'll move on to someone else, but I'm not sure who yet.

Oh, I see, that was the keynote, which is a different event than the panel, which IS about Hollywood and anime and manga. So I guess I'll just keep going, and pay more attention to my schedule for the rest of the con. ;)
 

 
OKAY! Hollywood and anime/manga. We've got, from left to right, if I can catch the names well enough: VIZ's Jason Hoffs, producer Joshua Long, producer Race Owens(?), moderator Northrop Davis, and Bandai Entertainment's Nobuo Masuda.

Davis talks about getting into Battle Angel Alita-- and getting it into James Cameron's hands, driven by the love of the work --which is pretty neat. Davis asks the panelists: what techniques are necessary or effective to preserve the quality of the Japanese works?

Hoffs starts, talking about how the publishers and rights-owners need to make sure that the studios respect the IP and that it's not just a money-grab on their parts. Shueisha and Shogakuikan-owned VIZ cannot guarantee that directors will have read every volume of a property or for them to be otaku, but yes, they should be genuinely familiar and fond of the property. And the American companies need to act as a bridge between the Japanese companies and the Hollywood studios.

Producer Joshua Long says that getting the view of what the film will be is the first step, and then the director-- who shares the vision. It's not until then that studios come to be involved.

Davis' next question is about the direct-to-DVD movie and the TV market, like for some shoujo titles that might not make it big in the theaters but would suit the niche. Interesting idea! Joshua Long says they just acquired the rights to "a very very huge shoujo title." Wonder what it is...Ouran? Nana? Fruits Basket? Hmm.

Hoffs says that it does feel like in particular shoujo manga could match TV, having the addictive and character-driven quality that's popular in TV. Bandai's Masuda says that usually the stories are such huge arcs-- one big story in 26 episoes, not standalone episodes --that the structure might be better for TV than for cramming into movies. Long says that they've tried but he can't say with what titles.

Davis asks next about how to protect the property AND appeal to a wider audience, and particularly the tactic of a big-name director or actor to bring the mainstream folks in (cough cough, Keanu?).  Joshua Long talks about getting people into a room together before the script-writing process even starts on the Bebop movie, something Peter Craig mentioned as well.

VIZ talks about another film they're working on, another huge property, and notes that sometimes the Japanese companies feel that the US companies are trying to turn characters into an "American"-style hero, which is simply unavoidable. He says this sometimes leads to "healthy" conflicts, which is a good point; if neither side fights for what they want, then it may wind up a weaker product, I think.

Davis asks about adapting a very long manga series into a single movie next. Do they think it's a good idea to involve the mangaka in the minutia decisions of the screenwriter/producer? How do they manage that?

Joshua Long says that the screenwriting process is generally solitary, done in 3-4 months (or more), and while technical questions might come up in terms of the series canon, it's usually answered  by wikipedia. He thinks interrupting that process isn't healthy, and everyone can get out their opinions once the vision is actually on paper. Hoffs says that VIZ's goal is to help make that communication as open as possible, so their goal would be to share those screenplays once they're written with the creators and editorss. It's important, he says, that they understand from the beginning that studios only give a "meaningful" creative consultation which is usually pretty meaning-less.

VIZ will always try to involve the Japanese companies as much as possible. The Japanese companies shouldn't just reject everything outright, what's important and what can they live with? What does VIZ need to fight for? So they can't overpromise a level of involvement for the creators that may not exists. There are directors who may seem collaborative until they get on-set and behind closed doors-- interesting. He says that screenwriters sometimes feel like they have to change things in order to earn their paychecks, even when the filmmakers would happily make something closer to the original.

Long says that fans are much more interested in seeing things from an eastern perspective than they used to be, where before it had to involve Greek mythology or Shakespeare.

Davis talks about how the reason he got into Alita originally was to talk about how multi-dimensional the characters are, a lack of "black and white, good-guy bad-guy" that was very "fresh" at the time-- which he thinks is now seeping into movies and television in the US now, too. Davis asks the panelists what attracted them to these forms, since it's such an "enormous battle" to get these things licensed and produced.

Hoffs says that it can take so many years to clear the rights, so you really have to know what you're getting into and be committed to doing it. But having this "reservoir" of amazing IPs from Japan that are so new and different to us is "massively exciting."

Joshua Long says Gantz inspired him and he'd still like to get that IP.

Masuda and Owens point out that gaming companies are now getting bigger than Hollywood films. Hoffs says it's tricky because if you need US domestic distribution to satisfy foreign distros, you need to make sure the studio is committed-- it sounds like Sunrise had a Gundam film with a $10 million budget arranged with a studio, and then they went and worked on a Street Fighter flick instead. Ouch.

But studios are more invested in things that they're making themselves from scratch, so make sure that they're seriously committed, because "those people are out there."

Davis notes that foreign theaters are doing a lot better with their local films than with most Hollywood films these days, leading to so many studios (like Fox) making their own international studios to make local films from scratch, rather than simply dubbing Hollywood flicks. Interesting!

Joshua Long says that studios are really looking at manga and anime as *literary* sources, not just franchises, which is cool to hear. Long is working with Atlas Entertainment on a short animation based on the film Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek, which some of you may have seen! At least, I hope to god that I heard that right. I'll confirm.

Kazuo Koike on a property that will be a French comic first, and then they're discussing adapting it into a feature, rather than waiting for it to come out in Japan-- a collaborative process with Japanese creators rather than simple adaptation. That is awesome.

Moving into Q&A...anyone involved in Dragonball Evolution? Jason Hoffs says he was sort of, but he came into the process after it was already underway. The guy follows up asking why did it fail so badly? Hoffs says he can't speak to that but he would do things differently: get a good committed producer on the whole time, bring the filmmaker aboard earlier in the process...and that we learned from DBE that the fandoms can be incredibly far-flung, and one needs to be careful about changing a character so much. Maybe Goku doesn't need a "Marvel-style character arc," or maybe you don't need to make Goku into Peter Parker, maybe it doesn't make sense to pursue that.

Hoffs thinks it's possible that some of the international divisions may meet licensors halfway, and American studio majors were deciding to cofinance and take more passive positions in lower-budget, locally-made versions of some of these films, and then later make an English-language version. "Having seen the movie, I would assume from their point of view, Fox and the filmmakers, they were genuinely trying to take what they thought was the best of Dragon Ball."  But that it was a missed opportunity in some ways, not the best that it could have been.

Davis says he was at an unnamed studio who thinks it was just a bad initial selection for the property. Just a random Hollywood insider opinion. Hoffs says that if you've got Dragonball or Grand Theft Auto, that it's such a beloved brand, maybe you just don't want to "pollute" it. An interesting point. But Davis says some immense things really are suitable; Dragon Ball is tough.

Long says that studios aren't looking at what's a "big" franchise anymore, they're looking at what they can do with what stories and what directors. Which may mean some of the smaller (like, B-list, probably) manga and anime might have a shot. That's pretty exciting in theory! What b-list manga do you want made into a movie?

Owens agrees that the biggest, most  beautiful franchises-- like maybe Haruhi --won't necessarily make a good movie.

Mikhail from ANN asks about pitching films "inspired by" rather than taken directly from source material. Owens and Long both say that it happens but you have to inspire the filmmaker first-- you have to bring them an original idea that has to fit in that genre. It's going to be a harder sell but it happens.

How do you adjust characters for American audiences that have such huge followings, like Spike Spiegel? Long points out that Spike is so heavily inspired BY western media that he probably won't need too much adjustment. Excellent answer. Davis says that brings up a point, that the flow from east to west goes both ways-- Japanese creators are inspired by American creators, and now more than ever, vice-versa.

"Homer, Shakespeare, and Confucius basically said everything, so everything is derivative," says Joshua Long. Another great answer.


 

THE WRAP-UP:
These are the handful of things you NEED to know from this panel, without reading the whole long writeup.

- VIZ says they're working on putting together a flick based on a publisher's biggest property-- possibly Shogakukan or Shueisha's, but I think I remember them saying they may reach outside for VIZ Pictures, so we'll see.

- Cowboy Bebop producer Joshua Long says they've acquired the rights to another film, a "very very huge" shoujo title.

- Just because a franchise is huge doesn't mean that it'll make a good movie, and Hollywood studios are noticing this with anime and manga.

- VIZ Pictures' Jason Hoffs suggested some of DBE's weak points: Goku's "Marvel-style character arc," getting a consistent producer from the get-go, etc.Brrr, this theater is cooooold! And I didn't bring a jacket.
  
eigoMANGA publisher Austin Osueke is the first speaker for this panel, which is focusing on Hollywood's recent move into making flicks based on manga and anime. eigoMANGA (not to be confused with AnimEigo) primarily publishes OEL manga.

To intro, Osueke quotes VIZ Media' sales VP Gonzalo Ferreyra talking about creating new consumers for manga, and "manga evangelism." He talks about how we're definitely in a recession, and about Dimond Distributor's new benchmark requiring a certain amount of expected sales in order for Diamond to even distribute the titles, which has been affecting all the manga companies, from eigo to VIZ. Sam Goody and Virgin also closed, so the distribution channels have been hit hard.

I did NOT know that Fruits Basket actually beat Watchmen in sales one month? Wow.

Back on distro, Osueke talks about smaller distributors that have been popping up, as well as Internet-based distribution, social networking, viral campaigns, etc. But, he says, none have a real way to convey comic ideas out. So he'd like to challenge social networking developers out there to create apps for specifically comic-creation stuff. Osueke says this is something that his company is working on. He's hoping to be able to show something at Comic-Con later this month. He also talks comics on mobile devices, which are so popular in Japan but less so in the US.

However, he feels that mobile and online comics aren't really a revenue-generator, but more of a viral marketing tactic to get the books back in stores. He quotes now Del Rey Associate Publisher (and my favorite hat-wearer) Dallas Middaugh talking about how reading manga on a screen is a different experience than reading the bookk. For some it's good enough, but for most, it's not-- unlike anime. (My words now: anime, after all, is more or less the same on the screen regardless of whether it's from a DVD or a file on your computer; manga on a screen is very different from manga on a page, experientially.)

And to tie it into movies, Osueke says that people need to think of their titles as IPs, properties that can be transferred to different media, including movies. He's going to hang up the mic shortly and we'll move on to someone else, but I'm not sure who yet.

Oh, I see, that was the keynote, which is a different event than the panel, which IS about Hollywood and anime and manga. So I guess I'll just keep going, and pay more attention to my schedule for the rest of the con. ;)
 

 
OKAY! Hollywood and anime/manga. We've got, from left to right, if I can catch the names well enough: VIZ's Jason Hoffs, producer Joshua Long, producer Race Owens(?), moderator Northrop Davis, and Bandai Entertainment's Nobuo Masuda.

Davis talks about getting into Battle Angel Alita-- and getting it into James Cameron's hands, driven by the love of the work --which is pretty neat. Davis asks the panelists: what techniques are necessary or effective to preserve the quality of the Japanese works?

Hoffs starts, talking about how the publishers and rights-owners need to make sure that the studios respect the IP and that it's not just a money-grab on their parts. Shueisha and Shogakuikan-owned VIZ cannot guarantee that directors will have read every volume of a property or for them to be otaku, but yes, they should be genuinely familiar and fond of the property. And the American companies need to act as a bridge between the Japanese companies and the Hollywood studios.

Producer Joshua Long says that getting the view of what the film will be is the first step, and then the director-- who shares the vision. It's not until then that studios come to be involved.

Davis' next question is about the direct-to-DVD movie and the TV market, like for some shoujo titles that might not make it big in the theaters but would suit the niche. Interesting idea! Joshua Long says they just acquired the rights to "a very very huge shoujo title." Wonder what it is...Ouran? Nana? Fruits Basket? Hmm.

Hoffs says that it does feel like in particular shoujo manga could match TV, having the addictive and character-driven quality that's popular in TV. Bandai's Masuda says that usually the stories are such huge arcs-- one big story in 26 episoes, not standalone episodes --that the structure might be better for TV than for cramming into movies. Long says that they've tried but he can't say with what titles.

Davis asks next about how to protect the property AND appeal to a wider audience, and particularly the tactic of a big-name director or actor to bring the mainstream folks in (cough cough, Keanu?).  Joshua Long talks about getting people into a room together before the script-writing process even starts on the Bebop movie, something Peter Craig mentioned as well.

VIZ talks about another film they're working on, another huge property, and notes that sometimes the Japanese companies feel that the US companies are trying to turn characters into an "American"-style hero, which is simply unavoidable. He says this sometimes leads to "healthy" conflicts, which is a good point; if neither side fights for what they want, then it may wind up a weaker product, I think.

Davis asks about adapting a very long manga series into a single movie next. Do they think it's a good idea to involve the mangaka in the minutia decisions of the screenwriter/producer? How do they manage that?

Joshua Long says that the screenwriting process is generally solitary, done in 3-4 months (or more), and while technical questions might come up in terms of the series canon, it's usually answered  by wikipedia. He thinks interrupting that process isn't healthy, and everyone can get out their opinions once the vision is actually on paper. Hoffs says that VIZ's goal is to help make that communication as open as possible, so their goal would be to share those screenplays once they're written with the creators and editorss. It's important, he says, that they understand from the beginning that studios only give a "meaningful" creative consultation which is usually pretty meaning-less.

VIZ will always try to involve the Japanese companies as much as possible. The Japanese companies shouldn't just reject everything outright, what's important and what can they live with? What does VIZ need to fight for? So they can't overpromise a level of involvement for the creators that may not exists. There are directors who may seem collaborative until they get on-set and behind closed doors-- interesting. He says that screenwriters sometimes feel like they have to change things in order to earn their paychecks, even when the filmmakers would happily make something closer to the original.

Long says that fans are much more interested in seeing things from an eastern perspective than they used to be, where before it had to involve Greek mythology or Shakespeare.

Davis talks about how the reason he got into Alita originally was to talk about how multi-dimensional the characters are, a lack of "black and white, good-guy bad-guy" that was very "fresh" at the time-- which he thinks is now seeping into movies and television in the US now, too. Davis asks the panelists what attracted them to these forms, since it's such an "enormous battle" to get these things licensed and produced.

Hoffs says that it can take so many years to clear the rights, so you really have to know what you're getting into and be committed to doing it. But having this "reservoir" of amazing IPs from Japan that are so new and different to us is "massively exciting."

Joshua Long says Gantz inspired him and he'd still like to get that IP.

Masuda and Owens point out that gaming companies are now getting bigger than Hollywood films. Hoffs says it's tricky because if you need US domestic distribution to satisfy foreign distros, you need to make sure the studio is committed-- it sounds like Sunrise had a Gundam film with a $10 million budget arranged with a studio, and then they went and worked on a Street Fighter flick instead. Ouch.

But studios are more invested in things that they're making themselves from scratch, so make sure that they're seriously committed, because "those people are out there."

Davis notes that foreign theaters are doing a lot better with their local films than with most Hollywood films these days, leading to so many studios (like Fox) making their own international studios to make local films from scratch, rather than simply dubbing Hollywood flicks. Interesting!

Joshua Long says that studios are really looking at manga and anime as *literary* sources, not just franchises, which is cool to hear. Long is working with Atlas Entertainment on a short animation based on the film Kakurenbo: Hide & Seek, which some of you may have seen! At least, I hope to god that I heard that right. I'll confirm.

Kazuo Koike on a property that will be a French comic first, and then they're discussing adapting it into a feature, rather than waiting for it to come out in Japan-- a collaborative process with Japanese creators rather than simple adaptation. That is awesome.

Moving into Q&A...anyone involved in Dragonball Evolution? Jason Hoffs says he was sort of, but he came into the process after it was already underway. The guy follows up asking why did it fail so badly? Hoffs says he can't speak to that but he would do things differently: get a good committed producer on the whole time, bring the filmmaker aboard earlier in the process...and that we learned from DBE that the fandoms can be incredibly far-flung, and one needs to be careful about changing a character so much. Maybe Goku doesn't need a "Marvel-style character arc," or maybe you don't need to make Goku into Peter Parker, maybe it doesn't make sense to pursue that.

Hoffs thinks it's possible that some of the international divisions may meet licensors halfway, and American studio majors were deciding to cofinance and take more passive positions in lower-budget, locally-made versions of some of these films, and then later make an English-language version. "Having seen the movie, I would assume from their point of view, Fox and the filmmakers, they were genuinely trying to take what they thought was the best of Dragon Ball."  But that it was a missed opportunity in some ways, not the best that it could have been.

Davis says he was at an unnamed studio who thinks it was just a bad initial selection for the property. Just a random Hollywood insider opinion. Hoffs says that if you've got Dragonball or Grand Theft Auto, that it's such a beloved brand, maybe you just don't want to "pollute" it. An interesting point. But Davis says some immense things really are suitable; Dragon Ball is tough.

Long says that studios aren't looking at what's a "big" franchise anymore, they're looking at what they can do with what stories and what directors. Which may mean some of the smaller (like, B-list, probably) manga and anime might have a shot. That's pretty exciting in theory! What b-list manga do you want made into a movie?

Owens agrees that the biggest, most  beautiful franchises-- like maybe Haruhi --won't necessarily make a good movie.

Mikhail from ANN asks about pitching films "inspired by" rather than taken directly from source material. Owens and Long both say that it happens but you have to inspire the filmmaker first-- you have to bring them an original idea that has to fit in that genre. It's going to be a harder sell but it happens.

How do you adjust characters for American audiences that have such huge followings, like Spike Spiegel? Long points out that Spike is so heavily inspired BY western media that he probably won't need too much adjustment. Excellent answer. Davis says that brings up a point, that the flow from east to west goes both ways-- Japanese creators are inspired by American creators, and now more than ever, vice-versa.

"Homer, Shakespeare, and Confucius basically said everything, so everything is derivative," says Joshua Long. Another great answer.

Flattery will get you everywhere! We're told that Hollywood is aware that we and the other Expo attendees are the taste-makers, and "they've gotta get [us]." Hee. Davis talks about how cool it would be if fans could give feedback on films during the screenwriting process, though I think I see Long-- who said earlier that the screenwriting process is solitary --shaking his head.

Whew, made it to the end. That was LONG! Other liveblogs won't be as long, I promise. Hope you guys like the wrap-up at the top of the post!